PARIS - Eugenie Bouchard reached her second straight Grand Slam semi-final as she defeated Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 7-5 at the French Open Tuesday.
The spot in the final-four comes four months after the 18th seed from Westmount, Que., lost to eventual champion Li Na in an Australian Open semi-final.
Bouchard has now won all nine Grand Slam matches in which she took the opening set.
The 20-year-old Canadian will take on Russia's Maria Sharapova after the 2012 champion beat Spain's Garbine Muguruza in a 1-6, 7-5, 6-1 comeback win.
Bouchard won the first set in an hour, but Suarez Navarro levelled in the second set when Bouchard lost her last two serves.
Bouchard started the fourth set with a break, but lost it and found herself down 4-1. But she fought back and advanced on her third match point when Suarez Navarro hit the net.
Bouchard finished with 46 winners, 38 unforced errors and breaks on six of 14 chances in the match that took two hours 22 minutes.
Four-time Grand Slam winner Sharapova has won both of her previous matches with Bouchard, including a Paris second round in 2013.
Maria vs. Genie, a #tbt semi. #RG14 http://t.co/euuJnoinoo- joyce eng (@joyceeng61) June 03, 2014
Sharapova started slow Tuesday, falling behind 4-0 before finally winning a game. She then started to land her shots, and her serves, with more consistency and won nine of the last 10 games.
Muguruza, who was playing in a Grand Slam quarter-final for the first time in her career, eliminated defending champion Serena Williams in the second round.
Sharapova lost in the semi-finals at Roland Garros in 2011, then won the title a year later to complete a career Grand Slam. She lost in last year's final to Williams.
'It was so tough losing in the final last year, being the defending champion,' Sharapova said. 'This year, to come back, I have the extra motivation to go further, and to be back on (this) stage is a really nice feeling.'
Sharapova opened her match with a double fault, the first of eight in the match. And she lost 15 of the first 20 points.
But even though Sharapova held in the fifth game, she was broken again, this time at love, to lose the first set.
Things changed rather quickly in the second set. At 1-1, Sharapova finally broke, with some help from Muguruza.
The unseeded Spaniard, ranked 35th in the world, double-faulted twice in a row to give Sharapova her second break point of the match. The tall Russian converted when Muguruza sent a backhand long.
Although Sharapova was broken again in the set, again with a double fault, she started to hold serve more easily while giving Muguruza more trouble while receiving.
By the time the third set started, Sharapova was moving Muguruza all over the court, landing her forehands and backhands easily.
The only hiccup came in the fourth game, when Muguruza had five break points but couldn't convert any of them.
'That was one of the most important games,' Sharapova said. 'After I won that game, I certainly gained more confidence.'
With files from The Associated Press
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